It will only take a generation to implement “voluntary” NAIS. That is my prediction unless parents who farm take the initiative to turn the tide. Headlines such as “USDA & FFA Team Together to Promote NAIS” and “4-H, FFA members begin enrolling animals in NAIS” show the new direction the USDA is taking. If they can indoctrinate the young people on the “benefits” of animal identification, this intrusion into the farmer’s and rancher’s business will become business as usual when this generation becomes America’s farmers.
Is there a voice in agriculture that can counter with solid information against NAIS and present this side to 4H and FFA members? Will the USDA and industrial agriculture have the undivided attention of our farming youth? The youth of today is infatuated with technology, so NAIS is appealing. We may win the battle in our generation only to lose the war in the next.
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This tagging of 4H animals has taken hold here without so much as a whimper. Why? Because the county fair requires it to show large animals. There was no discussion, no press, no questions asked. Parents who have kids in 4H & FFA sold their birthright for a cheap bowl of pottage – the experience of raising, showing and selling livestock at the local county fair (as if that has anything to do with real life) Of course NAIS is “completely voluntary”, that is unless your child shows her jersey calf. How many family farms have had their premises registered without understanding the implications of what they have done? How many good intentioned farmers have sold out future generations by registering their property, not realizing that the family homestead will always be in the system.
Mike, I read your introductory post to this site and you said that you didn’t have a problem with a farmer registering if it was totally voluntary. I assume you may feel different now. When the USDA finally backed off in Idaho and said it would never be mandatory, of course we all breathed a sigh of relief, but then many went ahead and signed the dotted line for whatever reason (loke county fairs). Now we say, “So what, it was his farm.” But now the scary thing to me is just the sort of thing you’ve just gone through – When it comes time to buy the farm on which to raise your children for the God’s glory, where do we find property that hasn’t been registered. Even if it was voluntary then, now when you want to buy that perfect property, it’s cursed – it might as well be quick-sand. I’m afraid the realities of this insidious plan may not be understood for a generation or two, and by then there will be no birthright left.
Allen
Allen,
My introductory post was written in July of 2006. Yes, my views on “voluntary” NAIS have changed. I was at a meeting about NAIS in February of 2007 where an older farmer stood up and asked how he could get his premise unregistered. You see, he had just registered it a few days earlier in response to a mailer he received. It was sad, because this man had been duped. It was no longer a voluntary program for him.
Another turning point in my thinking was when we were looking for our own farm. (This was for much the same reasons you mentioned above.) We actually put a “must have” point on our farm wanted advertisement that stipulated no premise id on the property. Most real estate agents and landowners didn’t know what that meant! We had to educate quite a few.
Mike
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